Lego

A group of minifigs go from master builders to master destroyers in animator Reto Hochstrasser’s amazing stop-motion short, in which LEGO anarchists demolish his laptop using fire and explosions. Forget Batman and Ninjago, we want The LEGO Destruction Movie.

At the 2017 Bricks Cascade, LEGO enthusiast Blair Archer shared his amazing Xenomorph bust with Beyond the Brick. Blair has been working on it for 3 years, mostly looking for certain parts or waiting for them to exist and fit his vision.

Unlike other LEGO space shuttles, KingsKnight’s proposal is a 1:110 model, the same scale as the recently released LEGO Apollo Saturn V set. The design includes the tank and boosters, the Canadarm, a satellite, swappable decals, and seven microfigures.

LEGO master Chris “PowerPig” McVeigh makes lots of awesome custom kits, but our favorite is this one, which includes a classic gaming console, a boxy old TV set, and lots of tiny accessories. If you prefer work to play, check out his sweet My Old Desktop kits.

BrickBros Productions takes a page out of animator PES’ book with this fun stop-motion short, in which real-world food items are replaced with their LEGO counterparts. We’ll have our bricks over easy with bacon.

Everything is gruesome! LEGO Ideas member Stephan Niks came up with a proposal for a unique, fun and educational set. His Anatomini is a 10:1 minifig shell with organs and a skeleton to scale. The skeleton is fully poseable and can stand on its own.

LEGO expert Sariel shows off one of his neatest creations yet, a motorized mechanical zoetrope, which displays an animation when you look through the slits at the posed minifigs as they whiz by inside. A cool spin on a classic moving picture device.

Dr. T ASMR sends a pleasant tingle down our spines as he opens up a LEGO Star Wars kit and makes as many crinkly, crunchy, tappy, and whispery noises as possible. As with all ASMR videos, it’s best enjoyed with headphones on.

Beyond the Brick’s Joshua Hanlon met up with builder Carter Baldwin at Philly Brick Fest to check out the section dedicated to glow-in-the-dark creations. Seeing these constructions under black light gives a whole new dimension to LEGO that we never knew existed.

At nearly 8 lb. and made of 2,863 pieces, The Mountain Cave is LEGO’s biggest Minecraft set yet. It packs a ton of features and figures, including a track and an elevator for its two minecarts, a light brick, a slime with two mini slimes inside it, and Steve and Alex minifigs.

To launch the Smithsonian’s new wing, The Nation We Build Together, LEGO Master builder Erik Varszegi designed a 9 foot-tall replica of Lady Liberty, using 25,375 bricks. The 1/32-scale sculpture will be on display at The National Museum of American History through 2017.

Beyond the Brick met up with builder Tom Atkinson at Brickworld Chicago 2017 for an extensive tour of this seemingly endless LEGO machine built collaboratively by LEGO fans who each worked on their own modules which linked together. That ferris wheel was amazing.

After watching Adam Savage and his pals assemble the new LEGO Saturn V rocket, we already wanted one. But JK Brickworks went and made it even more droolworthy, adding LEDs to the engines, as well as a speaker that plays sounds from NASA’s Apollo missions.

LEGO Technic builder Attika created this awesome open-frame 4-wheel drive, Android-controlled car tuned for mad drifting action. It’s got a working drivetrain, brakes, lights, and looks like a blast at to speed. Action footage at 3:30, and lots of build images on Flickr.

Adam, Will and Norm got their hands on the awesome LEGO Ideas NASA Apollo Saturn V scale model rocket a bit earlier than us mere mortals. Watch them unbox, methodically knoll parts, and build the set. Assembly and story time start at 2:25.

One of the cooler LEGO Technic kits out there is the Porsche 911 GT3 RS. It’s simply stunning. But that didn’t stop the guys from c’t Magazine from taking theirs and smashing it into a wall, with the help of the German automotive safety group ADAC and their crash test facility.

DaveHax shows us how to use silicone LEGO molds to create replicas of minifigs and other bricks using gallium, a very soft metal which is solid at room temperature, but turns back to liquid at about 30ºC (86ºF). He needs to mold a T-1000 figure from Terminator 2.

LEGO Ideas contributor Mukkinn designed this series of neat fossilized dinosaur statues which would let you have your own miniature natural history museum on your desk. Show your support, and let’s see if we can get LEGO to put them into production.

MoreCowsThanPeople makes these awesomely huge minifigs from solid woods like maple and cherry. Each one stands 12″ tall, and is fully poseable, just like their tiny LEGO cousins. They need to start selling outfits for them so you can dress them up.

SillyBrickPics custom-made LEGO minifig set was clearly inspired by artist Bob Ross. It comes complete with his curly perm, a painter’s palette, easel, canvas, and jars of paint. We can already imagine him teaching the joy of painting to other minifigs in hush tones.

We’ve seen a deadly replica of Cloud’s weapon of choice. Here’s a life-size replica that’s less threatening but still backbreaking. ZaziNombies used about 2,000 LEGO pieces to make this 6ft, 8lb replica. Someone teach him how to hold it.

Flynn’s Arcade shows off a nifty custom LEGO set from One More Brick, which lets you easily build an awesomely creepy model of a xenomorph from Alien. It comes complete with a LEGO facehugger too, though it looks like a bit like a Dreamcast that sprouted legs.

One of the creepier and more awesome mechanised LEGO builds we’ve seen comes from Darryl Friesen aka Baronworks, who created this chomping sugar skull inspired by the Day of the Dead. The noise its 100 spinning gears only add to the effect.

JK Brickworks shows off another awesome mechanical build – a fully-functional printer/plotter that uses a pen to draw words and images on a sheet of paper that it feeds using the wheels from a LEGO vehicle, and a Mindstorms’ EV3 controller.

After building a couple of smaller versions, LEGO fanatic slfroden shows off a jumbo version of his Yoshimoto cube inspired construction which can be endlessly unfolded and folded back on itself.